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Being awake didn’t solve my problems. As I lay on Ryan’s bed, staring up at the ceiling, I’d keep picturing someone bursting through the closed door or the locked windows, dragging me out of bed by my feet before Ryan could even open his eyes.
It fucking sucked. Royally. I wanted this saga to be over, but there didn’t seem to be an end in sight. I trusted Ryan—I knew I couldn’t have a better detective on my side—but even he seemed to be having trouble tracking this fucker down.
At least today offered a decent distraction. Visiting Ryan’s dad at his farm got me nervous in a different kind of way, a good kind. I didn’t think I’d ever met the parents before, and I hated that I was doing it on about thirty cumulative minutes of sleep, but it bothered me more to ask for a rain check (stalker check?), so I chugged some iced coffee with triple espresso shots and sucked it up.
“How ya feeling?” Ryan asked as he pulled up the long gravelly driveway leading to his dad’s farm.
“Good. The caffeine’s kicked in already.” I looked out the window, admiring the line of oak trees that bordered the driveway, acres and acres of land rolling behind them. Ahead of us was the farmhouse, a stately-looking building made of redwood logs with plenty of windows and an impressive porch that held five rocking chairs and over a dozen different-sized planters, all of them crowned with pale blue and pink hydrangeas that were about as tall as I was. Two of the friendliest-looking golden retrievers sat on the deck, paws crossed and heads resting, their big amber eyes watching us as we got out of the car and walked toward them.
“There’s Kelly and Ryan,” he said, both of the dogs standing with their tails wagging up a storm as we got closer. “My dad’s a big fan of morning TV. I’d be pretty confused when he first got him and kept shouting ‘Ryan!’ whenever he’d find a shoe eaten or a pee stain on the carpet, so he started just calling him Seacrest. He’ll respond to both.”
I crouched down and got a couple of welcoming doggie kisses on my cheek from Seacrest and Kelly. The screen door clattered open, and I looked up, seeing an exact replica of Ryan—the human one—smiling down at me.
“Hello, hello,” he said cheerily as I stood and was immediately wrapped in one of the best hugs of my life. “You must be Elijah.”
“I am, I am.”
“I’m Brett. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. Every time Ryan talks about you, he always lights up like a Christmas tree.”
I looked over my shoulder at Ryan, who was very preoccupied with giving Kelly some head scratches. I thought I noticed a slight pink rush to his cheeks.
“I’ll take that over him lighting up like a black hole any day of the week.”
Brett tilted his head back and let out a loud laugh. He even laughed like Ryan, the sound giving me a familiar warm feeling in my chest. He wore a pair of light bootcut jeans, the cuffs permanently stained with dirt, and a dark red shirt with a rainbow on the breast pocket, the words “Blue Creek Pride 2018” printed underneath. He put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed.
“Let’s give you the grand tour. Ry, you going to make out with her, or are you coming over here with your boyfriend?”
I froze for a moment. That word. Boyfriend. We hadn’t even used it with each other. And it came out so fluidly from Brett, so natural. It fit, no doubt about it, but… we hadn’t talked about it yet. Part of me wanted to point to a random spot in the sky and just shout, “Look over there!” It could potentially give me time to go run and dig my head into a hole.
Ryan chuckled and came over, a hand resting on my lower back. A very boyfriend thing to do. I tried to tamp down my heartbeat, which felt like a hummingbird’s heart had been swapped with the one I’d been born with.
Brett’s farmhouse was warm and cozy and decorated with a designer’s eye. He had gallery walls of artistic family photos interspersed with black-and-white shots of his farm and had white leather couches with the comfiest-looking navy throw blankets tossed over their backs. The ceilings were high, and every room was soaked in light from the plentiful windows, some of them rounded to appear like portholes. His library room was a mixture of books and trailing plants sitting on the shelves, blasting the dark shades of wood with bright greens. The bookshelves rose from floor to ceiling and lined each of the walls, with two comfortable chaises set next to antique floor lamps, looking out the sole window that had the best view of the White Mountains.
